高级商务英语UNIT4翻译

When Steve Jobs walked on to the stage

at San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center in

January, it capped the most remarkable

comeback in modern business history.

It wasn’t simply a matter of the illness

that had sidelined him for half the year

before, leaving him severely emaciated and

eventually requiring a liver transplant. Little

more than a decade earlier, both Mr Jobs’

career and Apple, the company he had

co-founded, were widely considered washed

up, their relevance to the future of

technology written off both in Silicon Valley

and on Wall Street.

By the start of this year, however, the

rebound was complete. The level of

anticipation whipped up in advance of the

January event was unusual even by Mr Jobs’

own, impressive standards.

Critics often talk disparagingly of the

“reality distortion field” generated by the

Apple boss: his ability to convince onlookers

that technologies that would seem unformed

in other hands have reached a peak of

perfection at Apple. Generating this

suspension of disbelief is essential to stirring

up demand for gadgets most consumers had

no idea they needed, and is an art form of

which Mr Jobs has long been the

acknowledged master.

Speculation had been building in the

tech world for months about what was

rumoured to be Apple’s latest

ground-breaking product. A touch-screen

computer without a keyboard, it might even

rival the impact of the iPod, introduced in

2001, and the iPhone, in 2007. In the event,

the iPad that Mr Jobs carried on to the stage

with him that day did not disappoint.

A rebuttal of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s

much-quoted aphorism that there are no

今年1月，史蒂夫•乔布斯(Steve Jobs)

走上旧金山芳草地艺术中心(Yerba Buena

Center)的舞台发布iPad，完成了现代商业

史上最引人注目的一次复出。

这不仅仅关乎半年前迫使他退居幕后的

疾病。病魔一度令乔布斯严重消瘦，最终不得

不进行肝脏移植手术。而就在十多年前，几乎

所有人认为乔布斯的事业及其共同创立的苹

果公司(Apple)已经走上绝路。硅谷和华尔街

都断定，它们已经与科技的未来无缘。

然而，到了今年初，苹果已然重生。在1

月份的发布会之前，即使是按照乔布斯自己的

苛刻标准衡量，外界对苹果的期望程度也是异

乎寻常的。

批评者总是用贬抑的口吻谈论乔布斯创

造的“现实扭曲场”：他能让观众信服，那些在

其他厂商手中似乎尚未成形的技术已经被苹

果完美地应用。为了激起消费者购买他们自己

也不知道是否真正需要的电子产品的欲望，打

消他们的疑虑极其关键，而乔布斯则早就被公

认为这种艺术形式的大师。

在iPad发布之前的数月内，科技界对苹

果这款最新的突破性产品猜测纷纷。据传它是

没有键盘的触摸屏电脑，甚至可以媲美2001

年的iPod和2007年的iPhone带来的影响。

在1月份的发布会上，乔布斯带上台的iPad

没有让人们失望。

对于F•斯科特•菲茨杰拉德(F. Scott

Fitzgerald)广为流传的名言（美国人的生命

second acts in American life does not come

more decisively than this. When Steven Paul

Jobs first hit the headlines, he was younger

even than Mark Zuckerberg is now. Long

before it was cool to be a nerd, his formative

role in popularising the personal computer,

and Apple’s initial public offering on Wall

Street – which came when Mr Jobs was still

only 25 – made him the tech industry’s first

rock star.

Now, three decades on, he has secured

his place in the foremost ranks of the West

Coast tech titans who have done so much to

shape the world around the turn of the

millennium. Long-time nemesis Bill Gates

may be richer and, at his peak, arguably

exerted greater sway, thanks to his

monopoly over the world’s PC software. But

the Microsoft co-founder has left the stage to

devote his life and fortune to good works. It

is Mr Jobs who now holds the spotlight.

Of all the fingers that Apple has poked

into Microsoft’s eyes over the years, none

can have rankled as much as the early

success of the iPad. Mr Gates himself

championed a tablet computer nearly a

decade ago, though the stylus needed to

write on its screen and the PC-like interface

generated little demand.

The iPad is already turning out to be a

different story. Extending the iPhone’s

innovations of a more versatile screen and

lightweight “apps” designed for specific

tasks, it points to a future beyond the

computer mouse – and a world without

Windows. Sales of cheaper notebook

computers are already suffering.

It is not a vision that is universally

welcomed among the digerati. By deciding

which apps are available in its online store,

and setting the rules for how those apps are

developed, Apple rules this new kingdom

中没有第二幕）而言，没有比这更坚决的反驳

了。乔布斯首次登上报纸头条时，甚至比现在

的马克•扎克伯格(Mark Zuckerberg)还要

年轻。早在书呆子备受追捧之前，由于在普及

个人电脑(PC)中发挥的关键作用，以及苹果

在华尔街的成功上市（当时乔布斯年仅25

岁），乔布斯就成为了科技界的第一个摇滚明

星。

如今，三十年过去了，乔布斯成为了在

塑造世纪之交的世界中居功至伟的美国西海

岸的几大科技巨头之一。他的老对手比尔•盖

茨(Bill Gates)或许更富有，而且在盖茨的事

业巅峰时期，凭借其在PC软件领域的垄断，

可以说盖茨的影响力比乔布斯更大。但盖茨已

经离开了舞台，将其余生和财富奉献给慈善事

业。如今，乔布斯才是焦点所在。

这些年来，在苹果针对微软的所有打击

中，没有一次比得过iPad的巨大成功造成的

冲击。近十年前，盖茨自己也开发过一款平板

电脑，但由于需要用笔在屏幕上写字，并且采

用与PC一样的界面，该产品并未带动多少需

求。

iPad则完全不同。iPad延续了iPhone

在屏幕多用途以及用于具体任务的轻量级“应

用程序”方面的创新，代表着一个没有计算机

鼠标和没有Windows的未来。廉价上网本的

销售已经受到了冲击。

不是所有数字专家都欢迎这样的未来。

通过操纵在线商店销售的应用程序，以及为开

发这些应用制定规则，苹果对这个新王国的控

制更胜于微软对PC的控制。

more closely than Microsoft ever ruled the

PC.

To critics, this is the dark side of Mr

Jobs’ perfectionism. Dependent on Apple’s

good graces, new ideas could be stifled.

Google, once an ally, has positioned itself as

the anti-Apple: a company that has drawn on

the openness of the web itself as the model

for its own smartphone software.

For now, though, those fears are largely

hypothetical, and millions of consumers are

only too happy to buy a piece of the elegant –

and elegantly simple – digital life that Mr

Jobs is selling. His ability to get consumers

to line up for products conjured from

nothing – paying premium prices, and in

uncertain economic times – draws accolades

even from rivals.

“Steve’s the last of the great builders,”

says Roger McNamee, a Silicon Valley

financier who led a recent, failed attempt to

rebuild Palm in Apple’s image. “What makes

him different is that he’s creating jobs and

economic activity out of thin air while just

about every other CEO in America is working

out ways to cut costs and lay people off.”

The sophistication of his touch-screen

devices is a long way from Mr Job’s

rudimentary start in the garage of his

adoptive parents in suburban northern

California. It was there that the circuit

boards were assembled for the first personal

computers designed by co-founder Steve

Wozniak. Rough wooden cases to house the

boards were an optional extra.

There was little in Mr Jobs’ beginnings

that gave a hint of what was to come. A

college drop-out with no formal engineering

background, he had just returned from a trip

to India when he and Mr Wozniak found a

way to turn their electronics hobby into a

对批评者来说，这是乔布斯完美主义的

阴暗面。依赖苹果善意的新思想很可能会被扼

杀。曾经的盟友谷歌(Google)站到了苹果的

对立面。谷歌以web的开放性为基础，建立

了自己的智能手机软件模式。

然而，就目前而言，那些担忧很大程度

上仍然是一种假设，众多消费者也非常乐意购

买乔布斯销售的设计优雅、简单易用的数字产

品。乔布斯能够使消费者在不确定的经济形势

下，着魔般地排队溢价购买苹果产品。这种能

力甚至赢得了竞争对手的推崇。

硅谷金融家罗杰•麦克纳米(Roger

McNamee)表示：“史蒂夫是最后一个伟大的

创造者。他的与众不同之处在于，当美国其他

首席执行官都在设法削减开支和裁员的时候，

他却在凭空创造新的就业和经济活动。”麦克

纳米最近曾模仿苹果重建Palm，但宣告失败。

苹果触摸屏产品的复杂性，远远超过了

乔布斯在车库中鼓捣出的初级产品。当时乔布

斯在其位于加州北部郊区的养父母家中，与史

蒂夫•沃兹尼亚克(Steve Wozniak)用电路

板组装出第一台个人电脑。外面套着一个做工

粗糙的木盒——这是可选配件。

创业之初，没有任何迹象表明乔布斯能

取得今日的成就。他从大学退了学，没有任何

正式的工程背景，刚刚从印度旅行回来。他不

过是与沃兹尼亚克一起找到了一种方法，将他

们对电子产品的爱好转化为了初创企业。

fledgling business.

As told by journalist-turned-venture

capitalist Michael Moritz in Return to the

Little Kingdom, Mr Jobs’ spiritual

aspirations left him with little use for either

shoes or soap for long periods – to the

distress of co-workers. A spirituality guided

by his training in Zen Buddhism has played a

central part in his life, even prompting him

to eschew formal medical treatment for a

period during his battle with pancreatic

cancer.

Mr Jobs’ first stint at Apple was to last

less than a decade. At the age of 30, after a

power struggle with a more experienced

executive who had been hired to run the

upstart company, he was out. But in 1997, a

floundering Apple acquired Mr Job’s second

company, Next, and within the year he was

back in control.

The iPad is the culmination of an

approach that he has seemingly been

perfecting for his entire career. Those who

have laboured under him describe him as a

stern taskmaster who understands the art of

the possible, rather than a long-range

visionary. That means pushing relentlessly

forward rather than milking old successes –

even ones as significant as the iPod.

“Other companies might try to stretch

out the life of [the iPod], but they were

willing to say, ‘No there’s better

technology,’ ” says Carl Bass, chief executive

of Autodesk, a design software company that

has developed apps for the iPad. “I don’t

often think about CEOs being brave and

courageous, but Steve is.”

Inside Apple, it is clear who calls the

shots on design and development. “You have

to make one guy like what you’re doing,” said

one recently departed executive, who spoke

风险投资家迈克尔•莫里茨(Michael

Moritz)在《重返小王国》(Return to the

Little Kingdom)一书中写道，乔布斯对性灵

的追求导致在很长一段时间里，鞋子或者肥皂

对他来说都毫无用处——这令与他共事的人

十分痛苦。禅宗佛教教义在他的生活里扮演着

中心角色，以致于在患上胰脏癌之后，他有一

段时间拒绝接受常规治疗，试图通过佛教提倡

的“精神力”克服病患。

不到10年后，苹果聘用了一位更富有经

验的经理人来管理这家迅速成长的企业，在一

场权力斗争之后，30岁的乔布斯选择了离开

他一手创办的公司。但在1997年，陷入困境

的苹果收购了乔布斯开办的第二家公司

NeXT，这一年还没过去，乔布斯便再度掌控

苹果。

iPad是乔布斯日臻完美的职业生涯的巅

峰之作。曾在他手底下做事的人将他描述为一

个严厉的工头，只理解无限可能的艺术，而不

是长期远景。这意味着坚持不懈地向前迈进，

而不是依靠往日的成功获利——即使是iPod

这样的明星产品。

软件设计商欧特克(Autodesk)首席执

行官卡尔•巴斯(Carl Bass)说：“其他公司可

能会试图延长iPod产品线的寿命，但苹果会

说，‘不，还有更好的技术。’首席执行官们并

不都是勇敢无畏的，但史蒂夫绝对是这样的

人。”欧特克是iPad的应用开发商之一。

在苹果公司内部，乔布斯在设计和开发

方面拥有最终决策权。一名不愿透露姓名的苹

果前高管说：“你必须让一个人喜欢你的产品。

他既是用户，也是营销部门。”

only on the condition he not be named. “He’s

the customer, and he’s the marketing

department too.”

That famed attention to detail can be

obsessive. A lieutenant who left this year

describes how the Apple boss can become

more fixated in finding flaws in an icon on a

screen than in the programme it represents.

“You can go into a meeting with the most

wonderful product in the world, and he will

stare at the icon for the entire meeting,” this

person says.

The same perfectionism is brought to

his hotly anticipated public appearances.

Before the lights go on, he practises every

phrase. An executive at another company –

who was due to share the stage for an Apple

announcement – recalls that when he was

brought onstage during rehearsal, breaking

Mr Jobs’ concentration, he and the staffers

leading him were treated to a hailstorm of

invective.

That makes Apple’s slips, when they

occur, noteworthy. A wrap-around antenna

on this year’s iPhone 4 made the device more

susceptible to dropped calls. Mr Jobs, who

had boasted of the elegance and technical

mastery of the steel band, lashed out

defensively, pointing to similar reception

issues with rival smartphones – before

offering Apple’s style-conscious customers

ungainly plastic “bumpers” to cover the

metal. The engineer in charge of the project

later quietly left Apple.

As Apple’s business has grown, Mr

Jobs’ style has changed, according to people

who have worked with him. “There is a lot

more pragmatism,” says a veteran who left

this year. With sales of more than $50bn,

Apple has had to look to the mass market.

Compromise seems too strong a word,

乔布斯对细节的关注几近痴迷。一名今

年离职的乔布斯助手称，这位苹果公司的老板

会对某个程序图标的外观缺陷念念不忘，甚至

超过对程序bug的关注程度。“大家开会讨论

全世界最为奇妙的产品，他却会在整个会议期

间目不转睛地盯着那个图标。”这名人士说。

这种完美主义情结也在乔布斯每次广受

期待的公开亮相中表现得淋漓尽致。每次上场

前，他会对每一环节进行演练。一名其他公司

的首席执行官曾与乔布斯共同登台发布苹果

产品。他回忆道，他在乔布斯排练中途被带上

台，扰乱了乔布斯的注意力，结果他和带他上

台的工作人员都被乔布斯痛骂了一顿。

这导致苹果的每一次失误都尤为引人关

注。今年发布的iPhone 4由于环形天线存在

缺陷，更容易掉线。令长期鼓吹这款产品的精

致和技术含量的乔布斯大为火光，并大力为之

辩护，声称其他智能手机也存在类似问题。但

最后，苹果还是向时尚意识很强的用户们免费

提供缓冲手机套，暂时解决了这一问题；负责

该项目的工程师稍后也悄然离职。

据一名与其共事的人士称，随着苹果业

务的增长，乔布斯的风格也发生了变化。一名

苹果前雇员称：“实用主义的成分越来越多。”

随着销售额超过500亿美元，苹果已经将目

光投向大众市场。

“妥协”一词也许过于强烈，但这种更强

but the greater sense of expediency reflects

Apple’s new place in the world. Its iPads are

now on sale at mass-market retailers – a

world away from the high style of Apple’s

own retail stores.

In this new phase of his life, Mr Jobs is

no longer the underdog. Buoyed by the iPad,

Apple’s shares finally surpassed Microsoft in

May to make it the world’s most valuable

technology concern. Others now have Apple

in their sights, forcing Mr Jobs into the

competitive moves that would once have

seemed out of character. Apple has

acknowledged its rivalry with Facebook, for

instance, by releasing Ping, a me-too social

network for iTunes users that a prouder

Steve Jobs would not have let out the door.

And he has adopted a dismissive tone

towards Google, a former ally. He called the

smaller, 7in tablets running Google software

“useless unless you include sandpaper so

users can sand their fingers down” – though

some speculate that Apple will counter with

a similar gadget of its own.

The attention of regulators is also new.

After antitrust authorities took an interest

this year, Mr Jobs backed off a requirement

that forced developers to use Apple’s

software tools to create apps, barring rival

Adobe’s technology – though the reversal

also seemed calculated to appease

developers who might otherwise turn more

attention to creating apps for phones

running Google’s software. “They have to be

less arrogant than they have been,” says one

former executive.

For all that, Mr Jobs has set a daunting

standard for rivals. “They have no predators

at this point,” says Mr McNamee. “I think

they could bring out a dishwasher and

people would buy it.”

烈的利害意识代表了苹果在全世界的重新定

位。如今，大众市场零售商也开始销售iPad，

而这些零售商与苹果专卖店的高端形象格格

不入。

在人生的新阶段，乔布斯不再是一个失

败者。5月，在iPad热销的推动下，苹果市

值终于超越微软，成为全球最具价值的科技公

司。而其他公司也都在盯着苹果，迫使乔布斯

采取了一些以往看起来不符合其风格的竞争

手段。例如，在意识到Facebook的威胁后，

苹果面向iTunes用户推出了类似的社交平台

Ping。换作当年那个傲气十足的史蒂夫•乔布

斯，这是万万不可能的。

此外，面对曾经的盟友——谷歌，乔布

斯表现出一种轻蔑的态度。他将搭载谷歌

Android操作系统和7英寸显示屏的平板电

脑称为“毫无用处，除非附送砂纸，好让用户

磨细手指”。尽管有人猜测，苹果有可能也推

出一款类似尺寸的平板电脑与之抗衡。

监管机构的关注也是乔布斯没有遭遇过

的。今年，在反垄断机构表达关切后，乔布斯

作出了让步，不再强制要求开发人员使用苹果

软件开发各种应用，或禁止使用竞争对手

Adobe公司的技术。不过此举似乎另有所图

——防止开发人员转而为使用Android操作

平台的手机开发应用。一名业界高管称：“他

们不得不比之前稍微谦逊些。”

尽管如此，乔布斯仍然为对手设立了一

个令人生畏的标准。麦克纳米说：“目前，他

们没有天敌。苹果就算推出一款洗碗机，人们

也会去购买的。”

In his autobiography, John Sculley, the

former PepsiCo executive who once ran

Apple, said this of the ambitions of the man

he had pushed out: “Apple was supposed to

become a wonderful consumer products

company. This was a lunatic plan. High-tech

could not be designed and sold as a

consumer product.” How wrong can you be.

曾担任苹果首席执行官的前百事可乐

(PepsiCo) CEO约翰•斯卡利(John

Sculley)在自传中如此评价曾被他赶走的乔

布斯的野心：“乔布斯认为，苹果的目标是成

为一家极为出色的消费品公司。这是一个狂热

的计划。高科技不可能被当作消费产品进行设

计和销售。”如今的一切已经表明，斯卡利你

大错特错了。

译者/何黎